7 things you should know about...
E-Books
Scenario
Kathryn is attending a conference highlighted by sev-
eral leading scholars in 17th-century British literature.
Her dissertation, which she hopes to defend at the
end of the semester, talks at length about the works of
Dryden and Milton, writers who are the focus of sev-
eral sessions at the conference. She attends one ses-
sion—by a relatively obscure name in the field—on the
recommendation of her advisor. That session, it turns
out, provides Kathryn with exciting new ideas that bear
directly on her thesis. After the session, she asks the
presenter about the material and where she can ac-
cess it. The book won’t be published for another eight
months, he tells her, but he points her to an online ver-
sion that is available now.
Back at home, Kathryn pores over the presenter’s
e-book, a task made considerably quicker because
the text is searchable. Given the deadline for her dis-
sertation, she has no time to spare. The e-book also
offers her an annotation tool that proves invaluable.
Using it, Kathryn makes notes to herself in the margins
of the text, including hyperlinks both to other places in
the text and to other resources on the Web.
Taking a cue from the e-book, Kathryn proposes cre-
ating an electronic version of her dissertation, and her
advisor agrees. She obtains high-resolution images
of early versions of Milton’s works held by a library in
Britain and includes them in her electronic disserta-
tion. Some of Dryden’s poems were set to music in
the 17th century. Kathryn persuades members of an
early music ensemble on campus to make digital re-
cordings of several of them, which she also includes
in the electronic version of her dissertation. She illus-
trates important points in her dissertation by linking
to other multimedia examples included in the e-book
from the conference.
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What is it?
Fundamentally, an e-book is an electronic version of a text that can
be read on a standard desktop or laptop screen, on a PDA or other
portable device, or on dedicated e-book hardware. E-books can
use many different file formats, though they all share certain char-
acteristics: they are portable, transferable, and searchable. Elec-
tronic media can also incorporate other features, such as annota-
tions, audio and video files, and hyperlinks. E-books can include
commenting and chat tools that allow interaction among readers,
and some let users add links to external resources. Some e-book
projects are tied to proprietary software, while others provide
e-books in formats such as HTML.
Different kinds of e-books serve a variety of purposes. In some
cases, texts that are conventionally printed are also offered elec-
tronically, to increase access to readers who might not be able to
obtain printed copies or to provide electronic features that enhance
or complement the printed version. Other books are only avail-
able electronically, which avoids the printing, storage, and mailing
costs of traditional publishing and may considerably reduce the
time required to produce and distribute a text. Still other projects
embrace e-books because the content is more suited to the medi-
um—and the functions that digital texts allow—than to printed text.
Who’s doing it?
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E-books have been in use since the early 1990s, when develop-
ments in IT began to allow convenient and cost-effective produc-
tion, storage, and dissemination of electronic texts. Both mass-
market and academic publishers have turned to e-books, and
several organizations—including Google, the Open Content Alli-
ance, NetLibrary, and Questia—are building online libraries of elec-
tronic texts that, to varying degrees, target the needs of academ-
ics and researchers. Digital companions or alternatives to printed
texts have become common on college campuses. At some insti-
tutions, in an effort to address rising costs of textbooks, certain
courses only use e-books, which are sold at campus bookstores
alongside printed texts. Moreover, forgoing the printing of a text
allows a publisher to issue new editions of books on much shorter
cycles, with some electronic textbooks updated annually.
Compared to printed texts, e-books demand a lower upfront
financial commitment, and they often take advantage of online
marketing tools, which are also often less expensive than tradi-
tional methods. As a result, publishers are more willing to take
more ➭
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E-Books
risks on niche-market books that would have little chance of being
published in a traditional manner. Similarly, writers unable to sell
their work to publishing houses can increasingly take advantage of
e-book production techniques to self-publish.
How does it work?
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E-books display text on a screen, allowing users to page through
the content, search the text, and hyperlink to online resources or to
other parts of the e-book, such as citations, other chapters, or an
index. Many e-books integrate multimedia with the textual compo-
nent. In one example, an e-book that discusses a piece of classical
music includes an audio file of that music. Readers can listen to the
music as they read about its characteristics and its composer. Other
texts include still images or movie files relevant to the topic at hand,
or tools such as a digital physics simulator, that help bring content
alive. Further e-book functionality depends on the hardware and
software used, with features available in different combinations for
particular e-book products. These functions include printing, copy-
ing and pasting, annotating text (and in some cases sharing those
notes with others), and reading e-books on portable devices.
Why is it significant?
E-books offer several key benefits, both to producers and con-
sumers of texts, including shortened production cycles, distribu-
4
tion channels that permit wider circulation of more timely mate-
rial, and new ways of representing content on a particular topic.
Sound, movies, and simulations facilitate a deeper understand-
ing of subject matter, while annotation features let users create
customized versions of a text. Marked-up versions of texts give
students an opportunity to demonstrate comprehension by high-
lighting patterns or themes they discern in a text, and e-book
functionality applied to dissertations similarly provides scholars
with a broad range of tools to express meaning. E-books offer
new ways for readers to experience and interact with content. An
e-book that abandons the notion of reading from front to back, for
example, encourages readers to take an active, self-directed role
in how they learn, letting them make individual decisions about
which path they take through a text.
What are the downsides?
As with other forms of digital content, e-books raise questions
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about copyright, both for producers and consumers. Given the
ease with which most kinds of electronic content can be dupli-
cated and disseminated, copyright owners face growing hurdles
in protecting their content from unauthorized reproduction. Aca-
demics who use e-books in their courses must carefully apply fair
use principles. Collective writing or editing of a text, which some
e-book tools allow, can introduce new issues of authorship and
copyright ownership.
At times, the inclusion of richer media in an e-book is either clunky
in its operation or is not well accepted by readers. Although audio
and video have the potential to bring a subject alive, multimedia
used for its own sake is more likely to annoy users. Moreover,
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some of the more experimental e-book tools allow readers such
latitude—to supplement, update, or even replace content—that
the authority of the text comes into question. Producers of e-
books must strive to achieve an appropriate balance between
trusted content and flexibility. Finally, many people still prefer read-
ing on paper. For those who enjoy lying on a sofa reading a novel,
e-books can seem anathema to reading for pleasure.
Where is it going?
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E-books have been slow to break the pattern of simply being digi-
tal copies of paper books with a few added features. As the use
of electronic resources becomes more common, and as screen
resolutions and other technologies improve, new generations of
users may be more willing to trade traditional books for e-books,
just as many students have largely abandoned paper and pen in
favor of a laptop or a Tablet PC. New opportunities will emerge for
cocreation and collaboration, among both authors and readers of
e-books. Definitions of exactly what constitutes a book will con-
tinue to evolve, and publishers and authors will add new features
and tools to electronic texts. Richer media, new ways of organiza-
tion (or self-organization) and collaboration, and greater access
to aspiring authors will accompany the ongoing evolution of e-
books. Underlying this process will be the question of authority. By
their nature, printed books imply a stringent review process, and
e-books must ensure that reader trust is preserved.
What are the implications for
teaching and learning?
Some proponents of e-books contend that an environment in which
students are able not only to read a text but also to make notes—
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and perhaps even change the book itself—facilitates the teaching of
composition, writing, and editing. Interactive exercises with e-books
may increase student engagement and deepen their understanding
of subject matter. E-books that make extensive use of multimedia
components can increase student facility with a variety of ways of
looking at certain concepts. To the extent that they can revise or cre-
ate their own e-books, students have an opportunity to learn how to
make appropriate decisions about the effective use of multimedia.
E-books also have the potential to extend greater amounts of
content, particularly highly specialized content, to broader rang-
es of students. Because costs are low and distribution is simple,
e-books can bring more, and more focused, content to class-
rooms. By the same token, students can increasingly take advan-
tage of electronic means of producing and disseminating books,
providing an avenue for exposure formerly reserved for senior
experts and established authors.
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November 2006